


Keeping A Cool Head

by salainen



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:09:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2029740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salainen/pseuds/salainen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about a man.</p><p>A man and a severed head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping A Cool Head

**Author's Note:**

> For Major Noku, who requested this on "Weekend At Scout's".

One backstab. That's all it will take to kill the Medic, and then one more for the Heavy, and RED will have lost two of its most valuable players. He can do this.

“I am fully charged!”

And he needs to do it now.

Spy decloaks and begins his approach, silently, silently -- 

He steps on a twig. “ _Merde._ ”

“Spy!”

With hardly a look, the RED Medic is wheeling around, that bonesaw of his in hand, and suddenly he's looking down at his own body. Some screaming may be involved.

“What are you doing, _Doktor_?” the RED Heavy asks his partner as the Medic turns away from the objective. Spy is still screaming.

“He's still alive! I can't miss out on an opportunity like this. Come with me back to the respawn room for a moment, and then we can destroy that Engineer's base.”

“I don't think is good idea,” Heavy says, looking doubtfully at the head dripping blood onto Medic's rubber glove.

“Ach, you never think these things are good ideas.”

* * *

A car battery and a couple cables later, and Spy is unceremoniously jammed into Medic's locker to await the end of the match.

“Apologies for the accommodations,” Medic says when he takes Spy and his battery out again. “But I imagine you'll get used to it, since you'll have to stay in my icebox.”

“...Why?”

“To preserve the specimen! Otherwise you may start to decay, and we can't have that.”

“Of course not.”

“I knew you'd see things my way.” He carries Spy all the way back to the base, where he immediately heads for the infirmary to examine his new toy.

As far as he can tell, Spy should be dead. Until he thinks of more diagnostics to run, he'll just keep him in the refrigerator.

“I've tampered with the mechanism, so the light should stay on even when the door is closed, and here is a dish for that cigarette of yours, though I would prefer you didn't smoke at all.”

In response, Spy blows a cloud of smoke in the doctor's direction.

“Yes, well. Not as though you have lungs to ruin now, hmm?”

* * *

“Kill me.”

“Later.”

* * *

“Looks simple enough, doc,” says Engineer, looking at the doctor's rough schematic. “I mean, you're missing some parts and some of this stuff's hooked up wrong, but I know what you mean. Come back in a couple days.”

Spy tries to crane what's left of his neck to catch a glimpse of what his two RED nemeses are working on, but only succeeds in falling over.

“Now, now, Herr Spy, you'll see it soon enough,” Medic admonishes, tucking Spy under his arm and leaving the lab. “It is, after all, a gift for you.”

That can't be a good thing. The two of them are probably building some sort of torture device, as if there's torture greater than being severed from one's body (which, through some bizarre awareness, he knows is back at the BLU base, sitting headless in the respawn room) and being locked in a box all day. This trip to the engineering lab is the first time he's been out of the infirmary since his arrival about a week ago.

“Don't look so horrified,” Medic says, interrupting his train of thought. “It's nothing bad.”

Knowing Medic's rather _skewed_ sense of what's considered “good”, this does not appease Spy in the least. He raises an eyebrow, but Medic isn't looking.

“ _Ja,_ once Engie is finished with the device, we will be able to accomplish much more.”

“Accomplish more _what_ , precisely?” Mostly he's been left to stew in the infirmary's refrigerator, smoking. Sometimes the Medic experiments on him, which mostly consists of getting a bunch of fingers in the neck.

“More. Stuff. Things.”

Spy snorts. “Extremely helpful, _docteur_.”

Medic hands him a new cigarette and lights it. “Just wait.”

* * *

The gift, it turns out, is actually rather innocuous, much to Spy's surprise.

“What do you think?” Medic asks him, holding it up as he opens the refrigerator door.

“I don't know. What is that contraption?”

“It's a Portable Refrigeration Unit! I thought you might be getting bored in the icebox, so I had our Engineer build it for you. Now you can be out of there for more than a few minutes at a time, without risking decay!”

“That's the only reason? You thought I was getting _bored_?”

“Aren't you? If you're enjoying your conversations with the sandwiches I can leave you be.”

Spy pales. “You heard that?”

“Oh, yes. I'm sure Heavy would be delighted to know he isn't the only one who talks to the food.”

“Do not tell anyone about this!”

“Or? You're not in much of a position to barter with me, _mein Herr_.”

“I suppose not,” Spy says, grinding his teeth. He stops when he remembers it may damage the miniature game hen inside his molar.

“So you will indulge me?”

“Yes, fine, put me in your machine,” Spy tells him. If he still had a body, it would be accompanied by an indignant hand-flap, but since he doesn't, he settles for waggling his head in a vaguely dismissive manner.

The Portable Refrigeration Unit, or PRU, has a thick round metal base with proper cables that don't look like Engineer pulled them from a roadside assistance kit. Over the base is a sturdy dome of plastic that retracts into the base when Medic pushes a button. There's a plume of cold air when he does so.

“I never asked,” Medic says, “but are you cold in there? I could get you a scarf or a hat.”

Spy just fixes him with a stare. “No.”

“All right, but if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He chuckles at his own joke.

“Just put me in your damn machine!”

It takes some quick fingers and a lot of luck to get Spy transferred from one set of cables to the other, but soon he is ensconced in the PRU. He finds himself half-disappointed that it worked; if he had died, he probably would have been reunited with his body. Probably.

“There,” Medic says, proudly. “Now you're free to wander the base.”

Another stare.

“Well, at the very least, I can carry you around the base.”

More staring.

“It's not the icebox.”

“Yes, thank you _very much_ , my forced captivity without the majority of my body is now more comfortable than ever!” He starts grinding his teeth again. “I hate to ask, but could you hand me a cigarette? Since I cannot do it myself.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention?” Medic says, innocently. “You can't smoke in the PRU. Explosive hazard.”

“When I get my body back, when I get my knives back, when I see you on the battlefield, I am going to kill you so many times you will hardly remember what it is like to be alive!”

“Yes, I'm sure you will.” Medic flashes his saw. “Though perhaps you'll recall how you ended up in this position in the first place?”

* * *

“Well, howdy, partner,” the Engineer says, giving Spy a tip of his hardhat as Medic carries him into the kitchen and settles him on the table. “How're you liking your new home?”

“It is cold and I can't move. I love it.”

Engineer laughs at that, and Spy is struck by how much it sounds like the laugh of his team's own Engineer, rough and wheezing. He even breaks off to cough at the end. “You still got a good sense of humour,” he says, lightly touching the top of the PRU's dome, “and you make a lovely centrepiece.”

“What?” Spy looks around (as best he can), and realizes that Medic has, in fact, put him in the middle of the table. “I am putting an extra stab in just for this humiliation.”

“Oh,” he says. “I just meant to put you in front of my seat.” He picks Spy and the PRU up and moves him to the counter. “Better?”

“Relatively speaking.”

* * *

“You look ...forlorn,” Medic says, leaning up against Spy's countertop after dinner. “More angst about your lack of a body?”

“I miss food,” Spy says. “I can't eat without a stomach.”

“You smoked without lungs,” Medic points out.

“Yes, but in that case I didn't have to sit in half-chewed piles of food that slid out of my severed esophagus. It was just smoke.”

“Relatedly, I still haven't figured out how you're _talking_ without your lungs. I would like to run some more experiments.”

“Are these optional?” Spy asks as Medic picks him up again.

Medic grins. “No!”

* * *

“ _Verdammt,_ Heavy, close the windows! I'm analysing the data from the last experiments on Herr Spy, and the wind is _moving my papers!_ ”

“You were experimenting on Spy?”

“Not our Spy. That Spy,” he says, gesturing at where the PRU is sitting on a chair.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Spy says, sardonically. “And I thank you for opening a window and making my suffering at the hands of your madman _beau_ completely pointless.”

“Actually, I think I have an idea.” He approaches Spy's chair.

Spy has a realization. “Don't do it.”

“And how are you going to stop me, hmm?”

“Don't do it! _Put me down, you imbecile!_ ”

He places Spy on his desk, the papers underneath the PRU. A living paperweight.

“Problem solved.” He turns to Heavy. “Enjoy your breeze, _mein Freund_.”

“Another stab,” Spy mutters. Medic says nothing, but gives the top of the PRU a patronizing pat.

* * *

“This,” Spy says, moving his eyes around in the best approximation of what would have been a hand gesture meaning _the scene we are currently in_ , “is not funny.”

“I have to disagree,” Medic says. “The contrast between you, an abomination of science, and the picturesque scenery is very amusing.”

“It is not!”

He settles a straw hat on top of the PRU. “It certainly is now.”

Spy sulks. “I don't see what is so _amusing_ about making me sit out here while you have a one-man picnic.”

Medic opens the dome of the PRU with a hiss. “For one, you are keeping the drinks cold.”

* * *

“Why do you insist on embarrassing me this way?” Spy asks. “I almost miss being in the refrigerator.”

“It was a matter of practicality,” Medic answers. “I am no longer young, Herr Spy, and I can't haul you and your apparatus around by hand all the time.”

“Could you have not found a less shameful mode of transport?!”

“Perhaps, but this one is perfectly sized, easy to push, and was already on-base, so I didn't have to attempt to defraud the Administrator for something else.”

“Ah, yes, I've been meaning to ask: why was there a _baby carriage_ in your base?”

“Just in case I acquired a baby,” Medic says, a certain stress on the word “baby” that lets Spy know he means him and not some actual helpless infant. It's somewhat reassuring to know Medic has something in the way of standards.

“At least take me out before we run in to any of your teammates.”

“Too late, chucklenuts.”

Of course it would be Scout. Of course. Spy grimaces, only spared a facepalm by his lack of arms.

“Ah, relax, I'm not gonna do anything to you. You're already stuck with the doc, and I figure that's bad enough for anyone.”

Spy relaxes slightly. “He is...” He realizes he's not quite sure how to finish that sentence. He _hates_ their Medic, for cutting off his head and experimenting on him and constantly provoking him with things like that picnic and the time he drew a mustache on the plastic of the PRU, but at the same time he built him this machine so he could leave the fridge and the experiments are never actually _painful_ and he always makes sure Spy's never bored or stuck in the lab and is generally far more cordial than “attempted murderer-slash-kidnapper” would normally imply. It's bizarre and he's pretty sure they're still several lightyears from the emotion known as “friendship”, but they get along, in their way. “I could wish for better company,” is what he goes with. There's no one in _this_ base he'd rather spend time with, but he misses his own team.

Medic seems to understand.

“Yeah, I get that,” Scout says. Then, “Yo, doc, I've got an idea. This is going to be _hilarious_.” Scout shoulders Medic away from the handles of the stroller and takes them up himself.

“Oh, no,” is all Spy gets out before the two of them are rocketing up and down the hallway, Medic watching from his place against the wall with wide eyes.

* * *

“It's a good thing I strapped you into that carriage,” Medic says, examining the PRU and its inhabitant, “or else you likely would have gone for a rather short air voyage when Scout stopped running.”

“Yes, I am aware of the laws of physics,” Spy says, “and I experienced that 'short air voyage' when I slammed into the side of my plastic cage.” There's a large bruise forming on one side of his face, and it feels like it's bleeding along his cheekbone, but he can't see it.

“How does your face feel?”

“Like I ran into a brick wall with it, how do you _think_ I feel?”

“I have to ask, you _Dummkopf_ , you're wearing a mask over the affected area!”

It's one of the barriers they've never approached. Even through all his experiments, Medic has never tried to take Spy's mask off, just as they never talk about work beyond Spy's threats to stab Medic once he gets his body back.

“You may look,” Spy says. It's probably one of the stupider decisions he's ever made, but damn if his face doesn't hurt.

Medic opens the PRU and lifts Spy out, careful not to put any pressure on his bruising. He puts him and the essential components from the PRU on the examination table, swinging the overhead lamp over to get a better look. He takes Spy's mask off, surprisingly gently.

“Hmm,” he says. “You don't look quite like I imagined.”

“Do you imagine me often, Doctor?”

“Only when I need to induce vomiting,” he retorts, putting his hands to Spy's face at last.

“Ow!”

“Luckily nothing seems to be broken,” he says after a short examination, “but you are bleeding. Since my medi-gun only works on REDs, I am going to have to stitch you up. Oh, it's been a while since I've gotten to do that! A little exciting, really.”

“Yes, a needle to the face, no greater pleasure on this earth.”

Medic smirks, threading a needle. “Please stop talking; you're aggravating your injury.”

“Hrmph,” Spy grunts as Medic begins closing the wound.

* * *

“ _Docteur_ ,” Spy says, looking away from the book propped in front of him, “I've been wondering – when are you going to kill me?”

“Eventually,” Medic says, not looking up from his own book, feet on the desk.

“More specifically, if you please.”

“Once I have solved the mystery,” he answers. “I need to know.”

Spy panics. He wants to know The Answer: what's in the briefcase. He can't tell Medic that, and not only because he doesn't actually know.

But Medic continues, apparently not having noticed Spy's sudden bout of anxiety. “How are you still alive? I've only heard of heads living for seconds after being detached from the body, but you lived all the way back to respawn _and_ you were talking.”

A sigh of relief. “I don't know either, _mon ami_ , though I imagine I am less interested than you, likely because I am the one living in a jar.”

“Well,” Medic says, brightly, “once we figure it out, I can kill you!”

“And to think there was a time those words may have actually frightened me instead of being comforting.”

“We live in interesting times.”

* * *

“I have a surprise for you,” Medic says, bursting into the infirmary, clutching a folder of papers and a small vial. “Or perhaps not that big a surprise. As it turns out, I have not been the only person experimenting on you – by the looks of things, both your Engineer and your Medic have been digging around inside you.”

Spy attempts to turn in Medic's direction, but does not succeed, for obvious reasons. Medic helpfully turns the PRU for him. “Would you like to explain, or do I have to guess?”

He shakes the vial in front of Spy. “Your team was attempting to build on-the-spot respawn! They built a tiny device and implanted it in you! So small I didn't even notice it until the last set of tests – your Engineer is very talented. Anyway, it was above the line bisecting your neck, so it kept your head alive, but not your body, which was swept up by the normal respawn. I don't imagine the Administrator is going to be very pleased when she hears about this.”

“No, I imagine not.”

“I hope you weren't too attached to your friends, since they're likely dead.”

He had rather liked his team's Engineer. The Medic he could give or take. “It's a bad idea to get attached in this line of work.”

“Very true! Though as you have seen, I have not exactly followed that advice.”

Spy is taken aback. He knows the two of them were getting along, but he didn't think they were _attached_. “What?”

“Heavy? The large man who spends an inordinate amount of time in the infirmary for one whose doctorate is in literature?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

A smile spreads across Medic's face. “You thought I meant you.”

“No, I didn't!”

“You did! Well, I will miss you – you were both pleasant company and a useful appliance.”

“Thank you,” says Spy, dryly. “I suppose I will miss you, too, in a way. Though not your hands poking at my neck all hours of the day.”

“ _Danke_.” He pauses. “How would you like to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Me killing you.”

“Oh. I was thinking a final smoke and a quick death. Preferably with a gun this time?”

“Filthy habit. I was hoping your time in there had broken you of it,” Medic says, but he opens the PRU and puts a cigarette in Spy's mouth anyway.

He coughs his entire way through it. Medic loads a revolver.

“See you on the battlefield,” he wheezes.

“I believe you owe me some thirty-eight stabs.”

“Until then.”

* * *

“Eighteen,” BLU Spy whispers into the ear of a dying RED Medic, pulling his knife from the other man's back. The Medic reaches up to touch the place where he knows there's a scar running across the Spy's cheek, and pulls him down to hear the last words of this particular life.

Out of some peculiar remaining fondness, Spy obliges.

“Remember,” the Medic whispers, “I still know...about the sandwiches.”

**Author's Note:**

> #brick joke
> 
> Anyway, as always, you can send me prompts here or on [Tumblr](http://gilgameshwulfenbach.tumblr.com).


End file.
